Motif of the Month April 2015: Cluster Granny Square Crochet Tutorial

Hey everyone, it's Deja from CrochetEverAfter.com. Today we're doing the newest motif of the month, April 2015, and this is the cluster granny. So I'm calling this cluster granny because we have these cluster stitches in the corners, and kind of the look of it is reminiscent of a granny square. Next step, I'm going to show you how that you can continue this on to make it even bigger. You get this kind of solid triangle that's going to come out from these side double crochets that are all, um... So I'll explain all that in a little bit. In the meantime, grab the pattern and a 5mm USH hook and some worsted weight yarn. Many colors as you want. We're doing four rounds for the video, so you could do four different colors if you wanted to. I just used two, but if you make it bigger, you can use as many colors as you want, but let's get started. To get started on the motif, we're going to go ahead and put a slip knot on our hook. Just make a loop if you've never made a slip knot. Start with your tail on the bottom. Just twist your hand down and then pull the yarn that's attached to your ball through that loop all the way tightened down. Put your hook through the yarn that's attached to your ball. So now we're going to chain six and we're going to join it to make a ring. So we always yarn over back to front. Turn your hook down so you can get through your chain nice and easy. And then push it to your shaft to get a nice even chain. Six. And then we're going to join our round to make a ring. So to do that, we insert our hook into the first chain we made. You'll see they look like little, so insert your hook anywhere, it doesn't matter, because we're going to have these all covered up on the first round. Push your hook through, yarn over, pull through, so you'll see I kind of turn my hook to catch it and pull through the stitch I just inserted my hook, and then I'm going to pull through the loop on my hook to finish my slip stitch. You'll see I have a pretty generous size hole there, I'm going to need it because I'm going to put a lot of stitches into it for round one. So just get your tail out of the way. You can start crocheting your tail into the round if you want, but it's kind of small, so you're not going to get much tail put in there, so I'm going to weave it in at the end. So the first instructions for round one is to chain two. Okay, so we have brackets now, and it's giving us... Cluster, chain 2, cluster, chain 5, and it tells us to do that 4 times. So when you see brackets, it's going to give you instructions, you just do the instructions as they're stated, each comma is kind of like then move on to the next instruction, so we do all of those in order, and then we do them again 3 more times, because our brackets say do it 4 times all together. So the cluster stitch is kind of like a DC 3 together, double crochet 3 together. But, we're not bringing three stitches together, we're just doing it all in one stitch. So I'm going to yarn over, I'm going to insert my hook into the ring so you can see the hole's nice and big, yarn over, pull up my loop, and you'll see the instructions for the cluster stitch in the special stitch section. So basically, it gives you the step-by-step instructions. It tells you to yarn over, pull through the first two loops, And then do that a total of three times. That was the first time, so I yarn over, insert my hook into the stitch, yarn over, pull up the loop, yarn over, pull through the first two, do that one more time, yarn over, insert into the ring, yarn over, pull up the loop, yarn over, pull through the first two, and then finally I'm going to yarn over and pull through all four loops on my hook. So that's going to create a little cluster stitch that comes all together. Then I'm going to chain two, I'm going to do another cluster stitch, I'm going to yarn over. I'm going to chain 5, so this is going to be one of my corners. So we're going to do this 4 times, and it's going to create kind of this little petal effect to the clusters on each side. So again, we're going to yarn over, insert our hook, start the cluster, and we're going We're going to do this. Three times total one, you know, still correctly, all inside the ring. Okay, so I have one more to go, but I've run out of circle. But that's okay because we work around the ring, so all we have to do is just grab both ends and pull them apart and I have more ring to work into now. So if you find that your stitches are kind of overtaking the ring and crowding into the beginning of your stitches, just pull them over, they will move, and then you can put the rest of your I'm I'm going to finish up this group starting and then we will join and start our next round. Okay, I just finished the last section. Now I'm going to join up with a slip stitch in the top of my chain 2. So again, to we're going speak to chain 2 to begin. now. And then you'll see that we have some more brackets. So it's telling us to DC three times in our next chain two space. So let's talk about this guy over here in between our two clusters. So we're going to yarn over, go all the way through, we're not going to work into the chain, we're just going to go all the way around the chain, and do a regular double crochet. So yarn over, pull through two loops, yarn over, pull through the second. Then again we're going to yarn over, go back through the first two and the second two. Then our next instructions say to chain two. It's going to get us over to this chain 5 space that we're going to work into next. So we're going to do a cluster, one of these clusters, a chain 3 which is going to create a new corner, and then another cluster. So just like before, yarn over, insert your hook, first 2, yarn over, insert back, first 2, yarn over, insert, one more. You see that I always turn my hook down when I do that last, well with any stitch, but definitely with the last stitch, because 4 loops is a little difficult to get through. You'll see that I always turn my hook down when I pull through any stitch. So I point it straight down, it gets me through easier. Because if I don't point it, I'm just going to get stuck. So point it straight down, and you'll pull through all four nice and easy. We're in chain two again, and that's the repeat. We're going to do three double crochets in our next chain two space. So once you get down the repeat, it's easy to do this pattern, especially if you want to make it bigger. So I'm doing four rounds. On the fourth round, I'll show you how you can create it and just keep going and make it a bigger, bigger, bigger. As big as you want, as many colors as you want, you can make a big ol' square blanket if you want to. So I'm just going to keep on going with this pattern and then we'll fasten off this color and join in our new color. Okay, I finished off the end of the round and did my chain two, and now I'm going to join with a slip stitch in the top. I'm going to fasten off this color because we're going to join in a new color. Join our yarn for round three. You've seen someone start a round without using chains. So instead of slip stitching and chaining through, which is going to count as a double crochet, crochet. So we're going into the double crochets. That's what our pattern says. Any of the first three DC groups. This is our DC group. So we're just going to yarn over like we would for a regular double crochet. Hold onto your tail, otherwise it's just going to pull right out. Hold onto your tail to make sure you keep your yarn over. Insert your hook, keep your tail behind you on the back side of your project. And insert your hook under both loops of that very first double crochet in the group. Doesn't matter which one, it could be this one, this one, this one, or this one, whatever one you want to pick, but it's got to be this middle double crochet group. Then we're just going to yarn over and we're going to pretend like we're doing a regular double crochet. Keep a hold of that tail, yarn over, pull through the first two. I let go of the tail right now because if I hold on to it, I'm not gonna be able to pull my hook through and grab it again. And then yarn over and pull through the second two. So now we've started our round with a double crochet, so we don't have any chains that look strange. We don't have to join in with a chain, we can join right at the top. of our double crochet. The only difference is our tails at the top instead of down below. It won't make a difference though when you weave it in, you're not going to be able to see it anyways. So now our next instructions is to double crochet in our next two stitches, so it'll be one in each. Then our instructions read to DC two times in our chain two space. So that's our chain two space, we're going to double crochet two times around it. Then we're kind of repeating what we did Here, again, so we're going to chain 2, and then we're going to do a chain 3 cluster in this corner. So this is creating another corner like we had. Chain 2 again, get back over to that next chain 2 space, and do some double crochets in there. We'll do 2 in every chain 2 space that we come to. And then we're going to double crochet in every double crochet that we come to. So for this round there's just three. So we're skipping that chain two that we did from the beginning of the round. On round two it's not going to count as anything. We're just going to go under the first double crochet of this group of three. I'm just kind of crocheting around my tail. You can leave it out, weave it in or crochet around it, whatever you like to do. And then our repeat begins here where we double crochet in that chain two space. We're basically just double crocheting every double crochet, two double crochets in every chain two. And then we're going to chain two to get to our corner where we do that corner stitch, chain three cluster. So we're doing that all the way around until we get back over here and we'll do a little bit different on the end. So just keep working around with the instructions and then we'll come back and meet up at the end of the round. Okay, I just put a chain, two more double crochets to do in my chain two space, make Make sure that you do those last two. We're going to join at the top of our double crochet that we made, and we're ready for round 4. So round 4 is going to start with a chain 3. Unless you change colors again, then you can do another standing stitch. If you do that, because this is basic repeat, you can join in at the beginning of any double crochet group. Because what you're going to do, because I told you on round four, I'm going to tell you how you can make this really big, is kind of what we just did on the round before. You're going to double crochet into every double crochet that you come to. So these little middle groups of double crochets, there will always be a double crochet on top of it. There will always be two double crochets in your chain two spots. on either side of these double crochets and then your corner is always going to be the same it's going to be a cluster chain three cluster so you can just keep making this bigger and bigger by adding those double crochets to the grip and to the chain two spots and you can make it as big as a blanket if you want so for now we're going to chain three and it's going to count as our first double crochet so we don't double crochet into the one that we joined I'm going to double crochet into the next stitch. And every double crochet after. Oh, don't forget to do your chain twos also, because you have to do that every time as well. You can change color every round if you wanted to. The color changes to a minimum, because I don't like to weave in Millions of ends. But if you did this like in a rainbow, that could be right here. We'll continue all the way around to the end. Okay, so I finished my last corner. I did the two double crochets and the chain two. So one thing that's going to happen if you don't change colors every round, if you start your double crochet in the middle, or your chain three in the middle of your double crochets, is you'll have some double crochets left over at the end of your round. So you've got to make sure that you do one in each of those. I'm sure you'll figure that out, because if you just join, it's going to look silly and have a big hole. But just to make sure, so I do two in those last two. I'm going to join up with the top of my chain 3, go ahead and weave in my ends, so when you have multiple colors when you weave in, just make sure that you stay in the color that you are weaving in, less likely for them to show through, so you don't want to put your green and your blue, because you might see it poke through the front, so I'm going to go weave this in and then we'll look at the finished Alright, finished all up, all woven in. The granny square, if you don't get the little holes that you get kind of here all the way throughout, as you make it bigger and bigger, this will become like a solid triangle out each side, so it gives it a much different look from the granny square, and these little cluster corners also. You'll see those kind of build out in a single opening with these solid triangles on the end, so it gives a really neat look if you continue the square. So if you have any questions, leave them below, and thank you for watching.